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Paper short abstract

Comhlámh works with a wide range of groups exploring solidarity, global citizenship and voluntary action. In a time when international solidarity is under threat, we need to create space for difficult conversations. Here we share some reflections on that process.

Paper long abstract

As the Irish Association of Development Workers and Volunteers, Comhlámh works with volunteers, volunteer sending agencies, and a wide range of groups exploring solidarity, global citizenship and voluntary action. Our Code of Good Practice attempts to hold contradictions, exploring power and complicity in international volunteering. We need to create space for difficult conversations, asking - Why are we failing? What are we willing to let go of? What do we need to move towards and what does this look like?

International solidarity is under threat, as more governments and institutions realign their resources and priorities towards xenophobia, militarisation, and self-interest. The volunteering sector, characterised by North-South flows, is scrambling to acknowledge legacies of racism, colonialism, and saviourism, while struggling to reckon with power and reparations. Some actors seek to use volunteering as a political tool, linking volunteering to welfare and citizenship. Others attempt to remove the political dimension, amplifying ‘good deeds’ but not the wider social analysis. Global South volunteering lives this reality in the shadow of dominant structures unable to handle difficult knowledge. This failure is typified by the persisting silence about the targeting of volunteers by state actors, whether that be the criminalisation by EU members of search and rescue volunteers saving lives, or the killing by Israel of humanitarian first responders in Palestine.

We will share reflections on the questions that are holding, as Comhlámh seeks to support emerging ways of being through values-led volunteering grounded in solidarity, integrity, respect, ecological sustainability and social justice.